atonal versus pantonal

While reading the Intellectual Devotional[1], I came across its page about the composer Arnold Schoenberg that described how his new musical composition technique (12-tone serialism) was described as "atonal" but he preferred the term "pantonal". This resonated with my desire that Existential Programming be recognized as multi-type programming rather than "type-less".

The analogy here is between the key signature of a piece of music, and an ontology of classes used in a program.

A key signature (e.g. C-major, d-minor) defines which notes are to be used, and the special relationships between different notes. To be "tonal" is to follow the rules of a particular key signature. To be "atonal" is to NOT follow the rules of any key signature. To be "pantonal" is to simultaneously follow the rules of multiple key signatures.

An ontology defines which types/classes are to be used, and the special relationships between different classes. To be "strongly-typed" is to follow the rules of a particular ontology. To be "type-less" is to NOT follow the rules of any ontology. To be "multi-typed" (i.e. existential programming) is to simultaneously follow the rules of multiple ontologies.

[1] "The Intellectual Devotional",2006, Kidder, Oppenheim
http://www.theintellectualdevotional.com/index.shtml